A study published in the journal PLOS ONE found that countries using the oral polio vaccine have a lower incidence of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) compared to countries using the inactivated polio vaccine, News-Medical reports..

While vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, are our best weapon, there are currently limitations in the production and distribution of these specific vaccines in many resource-limited settings. However, studies have shown that other vaccines,. More specifically, vaccines using a live but attenuated pathogen can stimulate the innate immune system and provide at least temporary protection against many other different viruses..

Some examples of such vaccines are Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) against tuberculosis and even oral vaccines against polio, a debilitating and potentially fatal disease that affects children.. Previous studies have shown that this vaccine may be protective against influenza, reducing mortality by four times, without any noticeable side effects..

Is the same true for COVID-19? A research team led by eminent American researcher Dr. Robert Charles Gallo hypothesized that countries using oral polio vaccine have a lower cumulative number of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population compared to countries using only inactivated polio vaccine.

This was an environmental study based on the cumulative number of COVID-19 cases in each country, the country's population (along with population density), the average age of the country's inhabitants, and life expectancy at birth.. The researchers also took into account the human development index (HDI), gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, and the type of polio vaccine used in each country.. While the number of COVID-19 tests performed daily in each country would be a better indicator than the HDI, the authors noted that this information is not available in many countries.. Data on the type of polio vaccine in each country was provided by the World Health Organization's Global Polio Eradication Initiative (WHO GPEI). At the same time, world maps were created using the Natural Earth public domain dataset..

Country-specific oral polio vaccine use has been shown to be an independent predictor of a lower rate of diagnosed/notified cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 population. While this does not prove a causal relationship, the effects were somewhat significant..

More specifically, the pooled estimated mean was 4,970 cases per 100,000 population in countries using inactivated polio vaccine, compared to a pooled average of 1,580 cases for countries using oral polio vaccine..

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